Borland Software has appointed Tod Nielson, the man who helped turn Microsoft's Developer Network (MSDN) into a success, as its president and chief executive.

Nielson replaces interim CEO Scott Arnold who took-over following Dale Fuller's resignation after Borland announced preliminary financial results that missed Wall St's expectations.

Borland, hosting its annual BorCon users' conference in San Francisco, California, said in a statement it is pleased by Nielsen's deep experience in its target markets and his proven leadership, and confident it could continue to push ahead with the Software Delivery Optimization (SDO) strategy.

Nielson certainly has his work cut out for him. Revenue from Borland's JBuilder Integrated Development Environment (IDE) has been hit by the rise of open source, Eclipse-based tools. Borland is seeking to spread its revenue streams by selling suites of combined application lifecycle management (ALM) capabilities under SDO.

Revenue from licensing fell 29 per cent to $38.1m during the quarter Fuller stepped down and 26 per cent during the subsequent third quarter to $39.2m. Borland recorded losses of $17.9m, down from a profit of $2.8m, and $4.8m, down from $160,000 for the second and third quarters respectively.

Nielson joins Borland from Oracle where he'd served as vice president for marketing and global partner sales support. He oversaw marketing support for Oracle's server software, including the Oracle database and Fusion Middleware.

Prior to Oracle, Nielson was BEA Systems' executive vice president and chief marketing officer, having joined directly from web services start-up Crossgain where he was CEO.

Nielson left BEA in August 2004 amid management fallout over strategy, and following an ill-advised company commitment to recruit one million developers in the 12 months following the launch of its first WebLogic Workshop development environment.

Nielson is best known as Microsoft's long-serving developer tools evangelist. During his 11 years with Microsoft, Nielson shook-up MSDN - laying the foundation for the rich and diverse content and services that are found on MSDN today - and helped establish the massive ISV community that today surrounds Windows.®

Related stories

Borland tools buyer MIA (16 November 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/16/borland_tools_spin_out/
Sun tempts corporate JBuilder users (4 August 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/04/sun_netbeans_jbuilder/
Borland wants to be a Red Hat for developers (26 April 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/26/brown_borland_tools/
Borland CEO promises 'caring' IDE overlord (23 March 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/borland_nielsen_tools_investor/
Borland assures IDE users (8 March 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/08/borland_ide_future/
Borland's Delphi goodbye (7 March 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/07/borland_ditches_delphi/
Borland gambles without developers (9 February 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/09/borland_exits_ide_market/
Borland rides Segue on trip out of IDE biz (8 February 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/08/borland_dumps_delphi_tools/
Borland Delphi 2006 (1 February 2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/01/borland_delphi_2006/
Microsoft takes on enterprise - again (9 November 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/09/ms2005_launch/
Peloton getting closer for Borland (6 September 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/06/borland_jbuilder/
Borland disappoints again in Q2 (8 July 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/08/borland_ceo_out/
Eclipse updates platform and projects (28 June 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/28/eclipse_upgrades/
Borland shoots Peloton down roadmap (1 June 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/01/_borland_jbuilder/
Borland splits Together for Visual Studio .NET (21 April 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/21/micrsosoft_borland_together/
Borland to miss Q1 targets (8 April 2005)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/08/borland_miss_targets/
Tough times for BEA (9 August 2004)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/09/bea_tough_times/
Developer army not on its way for BEA (29 August 2002)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/29/developer_army_not_on_its/
Demob happy Court shows pointers to Microsoft Trial verdict (21 December 1998)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1998/12/21/demob_happy_court_shows_pointers/